Conventional easels used by artists in studios normally have a pair of rigid forward legs and one or more pivoted legs extending rearwardly therefrom, the forward legs having at least one horizontal supporting bar thereon upon which the lower edge of a canvas or artists board is supported in somewhat rearwardly inclinded manner and the upper edge of the canvas or board may or may not be clamped in some way relative to the forward legs. Easels of this type are highly satisfactory for use in studios but for purposes of transporting the same to various locations and especially to either indoor or outdoor locations for use, as well as storage of the same in living quarters such as apartments and the like, such conventional unitary leg type of easels are awkard and consume more space than usually is available in storage closets, automobiles and the like. As a result, many attempts have been made over the years to provide collapsible type easels which, for the most part are provided with some type of pivoted and extensible and retractable leg. The outstanding objective in providing collapsible type easels is to render the same as compact as possible when they are in collapsed condition and, preferably, have no loose members which have to be accounted for when the easel is to be used or while being transported.
A number of collapsible easels previously developed have been directed toward arranging the various components to be compactly arranged in a suitcase or other forms of enclosing means and typical examples of these are illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos:
2,549,306 - Greene -- 1951 PA1 2,565,078 - Kaplan -- 1951 PA1 2,935,812 - Adami -- 1960 PA1 3,202,471 - Wilson -- 1965
One difficulty associated with designing a collapsible easel capable of being contained within a suitable carrying case is that it normally limits the size of the easel and it is the principal objective of the present invention to provide an easel which has all of the attributes of being compact and equivalent to being contained within an enclosure without actually having an enclosure and, in addition, providing an easel of substantially normal proportions when the same is arranged in operative position.